DUMPING NEWT GINGRICH won't do much to reverse Republicans' failing
electoral fortunes unless GOP members come up with a winning policy agenda
for the 107th Congress, and so far they seem clueless on what that might be.

Democrats, on the other hand, are focused and ready, thanks in part to a
coherent, national campaign in which they promised to 'save' Social
Security, restrict the way HMOs deliver health care and reduce class size in
public schools. On this last issue, Republicans in Congress conceded defeat
even before the election, approving $1.2 billion in extra federal aid to
hire 30,000 new elementary school teachers for the 1999 school year.

For years now, congressional Republicans have allowed Democrats to posture
as the 'education party,' never making education issues a top priority even
during the last four years, when the GOP finally took control of both houses
of Congress. Part of the problem for Republicans is their insistence that
education is a local issue.

Philosophically, Republicans are more comfortable punting to local
government on the tough issues like education standards and school
curriculum. Meanwhile, Republicans have helped Democrats pump more and more
federal dollars into an already bloated education bureaucracy. Next year,
courtesy of the Republican-controlled Congress, the federal education budget
will exceed $38 billion. And what will those federal dollars buy? More votes
for Democrat candidates from teacher union members -- and a second-rate
education for American kids.

If the Republicans ever wanted to get serious about reforming education,
next year would be the perfect opportunity. The landmark Elementary and
Secondary Education Act comes up for re-authorization in the next Congress.
This legislation was first passed in 1965 and was the camel's nose under the
tent in the federal takeover of education. Instead of tinkering with the
existing legislation, Republicans should come up with an entirely new
formula that rewards success, encourages competition and rids school
districts of incompetent teachers and administrators.

Republicans could start by scrapping the existing formula for dispensing
funds for disadvantaged students, the more than $7 billion that goes to
Title I programs. Under the current law, local school districts receive
money based on how poorly students perform. According the Department of
Education, "the school must target Title I services to children who are
failing, or most at risk of failing, to meet state academic standards."

The idea behind the program was to concentrate limited funds where they
were most needed. But like many well-intentioned liberal solutions, Title I
actually rewards the very behavior it is attempting to change, in this case
poor academic performance. Why not devise a new funding formula that rewards
school districts which show improvement in student performance, allowing
school districts themselves to experiment with how best to boost scores? The
same rationale could be used to reward schools that successfully teach
non-English-speaking children to speak, read and write English: The quicker
the children learn the new language, the more money the school would
receive.

Since 1965, the federal government has spent trillions of dollars on public
elementary and secondary education, with little to show for its investment.
In the 25 years between 1971 and 1996, reading scores among 17-year-olds
went up exactly 0.4 percent, while per-pupil expenditures on public
elementary and secondary education almost doubled (in constant dollars).
Meanwhile, American eighth- and 12th-grade students do worse in math than
students from all the G-7 countries: Canada, England, France, Germany, Italy
and Japan. Any other enterprise that received such a poor a return on
investment would be out of business long ago.

But if Republicans have failed to show leadership on education issues, it's
the Democrats who have been the true cynics. Their only answer has been to
pour more money into failing schools. The president's latest gambit -- a
promised 100,000 new teachers paid for with federal dollars over the next
seven years -- will have exactly zero impact in improving education. The
only way those 100,000 new teachers could make a difference is if they
replaced 100,000 incompetent and indifferent teachers now in the classroom.

A real debate over how best to improve public education could provide
Republicans with a way to reach out to women and minority voters, who've
shunned the GOP in every recent election. But first Republicans will have to
offer more than tired platitudes about local
control.

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